Towards the Critique of Violence Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben

In the past two and a half decades, Walter Benjamin's early essay 'Towards the Critique of Violence' (1921) has taken a central place in politico-philosophic debates. The complexity and perhaps even the occasional obscurity of Benjamin's text have undoubtedly contributed to the diversity, conflict, and richness of contemporary readings. Interest has heightened following the attention that philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben have devoted to it. Agamben's own interest started early in his career with his 1970 essay, 'On the Limits of Violence', and Benjamin's essay continues to be a fundamental reference in Agamben's work.

Written by internationally recognized scholars, Towards the Critique of Violence is the first book to explore politico-philosophic implications of Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence' and correlative implications of Benjamin's resonance in Agamben's writings. Topics of this collection include mythic violence, the techniques of non-violent conflict resolution, ambiguity, destiny or fate, decision and nature, and the relation between justice and thinking. The volume explores Agamben's usage of certain Benjaminian themes, such as Judaism and law, bare life, sacrifice, and Kantian experience, culminating with the English translation of Agamben's 'On the Limits of Violence'.

Brendan Moran is Associate Professor of Philosophy, and Adjunct Associate Professor of German, at the University of Calgary, Canada.

Carlo Salzani is a translator and author based in Münster, Germany and editor, with Brendan Moran, of Philosophy and Kafka (2013).

Abbreviations
The Contributors

Introduction: On the Actuality of the 'Critique of Violence'
Brendan Moran and Carlo Salzani

Part I: Benjamin's Critique of Violence
1. Techniques of Agreement, Diplomacy, Lying Bettine Menke
2. The Ambiguity of Ambiguity in Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence', Alison Ross
3. Benjamin's Niobe, Amir Ahmadi
4. Nature, Decision, and Muteness, Brendan Moran
5. Variations of Fate Antonia Birnbaum

Part II: Agamben's Readings of Benjamin
6. From Benjamin's bloßes Leben to Agamben's nuda vita: A Genealogy, Carlo Salzani
7. Agamben's Critique of Sacrificial Violence, J. Colin McQuillan
8. Agamben, Benjamin and the Indifference of Violence, William Watkin
9. Suchness and the Threshold between Possession and Violence, Paolo Bartoloni
10. Violence Without Law? On Pure Violence as a Destituent Power, Thanos Zartaloudis
11. The Anarchist Life we are Already Living: Benjamin and Agamben on Bare Life and the Resistance to Sovereignty, James R. Martel
12. Benjamin and Agamben on Kafka, Judaism and the Law, Vivian Liska
13. Expropriated Experience: Agamben Reading Benjamin, Reading Kant Alex Murray

Appendix
On the Limits of Violence Giorgio Agamben

Index

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